Designer Spotlight: Raili CA Design
With bright colors, graphic patterns, and coastal influences, Raili CA Design embodies California cool design with her eclectic and stylized interiors. Based out of Newport Beach, Raili Clasen‘s unique and playful style always shows through in her projects, no matter if they are located in the mountains of Montana or on the coast of California. We sat down with Raili to learn more about her journey to becoming a designer, her design process, and some recent accomplishments.
Raili Clasen never thought she would become an interior designer. Always creative, she worked for Quiksilver and Roxy, merging her love for fashion and the surf industry, before she got into interior design “by necessity.” She explained, “We bought a total fixer, I had hired a designer to help me, and she moved away a few weeks later to London. I could not find anyone that had the style she had, so I dove in and designed our house myself. I never had a clue this would completely change my life and career.” After getting attention for her home projects, Raili pivoted to interior design and started Raili CA Design.
Raili’s style is truly one of a kind and always recognizable with her distinct color palette, use of type, and fun patterns. Shades of mustard yellow, olive green, and deep blue are offset with natural materials and various wood tones, while graphic patterns and bold artwork tie the whole space together. Contrast is created in the space by using dark colors to ground the bright interiors and interesting color pairings make each room different from the next. Raili told us, “Someone recently described my style as design with a wink. We love to create cool spaces that have just that minute of whimsy when you walk in.” With her background in the surf world, Raili is heavily inspired by surf culture, coastal life, and California. “Being in the surf industry was the most creative atmosphere on the planet. These visual experts I hung out with went way, way out of the box and I learned to think that way without getting too crazy in the homes we design.”
Inspired by Raili’s fun and bold color schemes, we custom made two inks for different Raili CA projects. Looking for more neutral tones that were unlike “off the shelf” inks, we developed our moss green and indigo colors for some custom large silkscreens. The moss green Solid Blocks has a warm earthy tone and perfectly complements the cool interior, while the pair of indigo High Contrast silkscreens are striking with their deep blue colorway and graphic shapes. Both of these inks are now some of our most popular ink colors thanks to Raili!
It’s easy for Raili CA to maintain their signature aesthetic because “if we think something is amazing, we pitch it.” Always staying true to themselves makes the Raili CA style feel genuine and natural, while remaining versatile and allowing for them to evolve with each new project. Raili elaborated, “We cannot do the same style at a beach cottage as we do in the mountains or with the desert Spanish haciendas. We stay with the concept of creating fun, but the materials change with each project.” With some remarkable projects under her belt, Raili calls out the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch as her “pinch me” project, allowing her to bring her “surf industry life and design career together in perfect harmony.” From her journey of starting Raili CA Design to today, Raili stated, “the collaboration opportunities, building an awesome team, and the book deal are dreams I never knew would come true.” This year Raili released a book titled “Surf Style at Home”, which gives a look into her favorite colorful, surf-inspired projects.
